Creationists, Flat-Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers.... People who reject science.

@farmerman,

USGS publishes a number of "Unanswered questions" on its website
[url]USGS.gov/pubs [/url]. we can go to the DYNAMIC EARTH batch and understand the history AND FOLLOWUPS as to how we utilize Plate Tectonics in so many ways and applications.
One of the areas Ive always had an interest in is petroleum (obviously). Weve known that petroleum formation , migration, and pooling (traps) require a certain amount of heat. The Epsteins (in the earliest days of Plate Tectonic theory, this husband and wife team learned to measure the temperature gradients that were conducive to "cooking and forming petroleum out of seal life goo). They were able to develop a temperature scale based on the colors seen in things like fossil shells and foraminiferans.

When PT became a more mature science, the reason for the "cooking became better understood as resulting from sub sesimentary thermal gradients (That is, the goo was cookd by just the right amount of heat from below

Too much heat and you have tar and just black shales,

too little and its just a class in organic chemistry and microbiology. (the applied science of formulating waxes, soaps, and polymers)

Plate Tectonics became a useful guide-on tool to let us know, in a sea floor spreading plate , where to do initial test drilling.
The USGS began publishing thermal gradient information . These, coupled with several other tricks , gave us really top notch dta on how to better locate hydrocarbons. SInce almost all hydrocarbons are the result of marine micro organisms (animals like micro cephalopods, forams, mollusca, gastropods etc etc) NOT DINOSAURS like those shown on 1940's ads and billboards. SO, starting investigations on ancient nd recent marine depoits of organisms, at specific depths (chosen by EPsteins methods) and migrating and emplaced wrt specific plate boundaries, weve been able to increase our success accuracy to the high 90%.

What used to be called "wildcatting" is now a mature pussy science, all because students pay attention in class and learn tricks of the trade that they can apply when its thir turns to test whether this stuff they lernt wasnt bullshit as some people seem to believe.

We can always test our beliefs and evidence using the falsification tricks. As a result of having done so, our gas availability is no longer on a scare "peak petroleum curve". We appear to have enough available petroleum to get us out of a fossil fuel economy and into a renewable energy economy (as long as we dont dick aroun and listen to science deniers who tell us that we should mine and burn more coal )

Plate Tectonics has been a major contributor to ways in which we hve been reshaping our energy thinking. All we hve left to do is understand the facts and plan wisely for our future

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@livinglava,

LivingLava has two problems. One is mathematical/conceptual...

1) LivingLava is mathematically wrong.

It is quite common for an object that is being pushed up a hill to have a greater kinetic energy at the top then it does in the bottom. If this were a discussion in my high school class, I would have my students calculate what force would be required for this to happen. Any reasonably good high school Physics student would be able to calculate this without much problem.

You should the math, but in this case you don't even need to. A car stopped on the bottom of a hill has zero kinetic energy. If the driver steps on the gas, most cars will have no problem speeding over the top of the hill with a fairly high kinetic energy at the top.

2) LivingLava is also philosophically wrong. He has be arguing for what he calls "critical thinking" and questioning. But look at what happened.

He made a statement that is wrong. It is fairly simple to show that it is wrong. He was questioned about it. Instead of questioning is own preconception and seeing his own mistake he doubled down. He is taking what seems right to him at first... and sticks with it unwaveringly.

I know far more Physics than LivingLava. I learned it by doing my homework (literally). But, unlike him, I have been willing to admit when I am wrong. I wish I could find the thread, but Engineer once corrected me on a stupid mistake I had made in a discussion about basic mechanics... I looked at what he said. I did the calculation (my mistake is that I answered too quickly at something I thought I knew without doing the math). And I admitted I was wrong.

There is no shame in making a mistake. But there are right answers in Physics, and those right answers are determined by the math (and by experiments, but experiments in Physics are math).

You can't argue with math. And... you can't argue Physics without math.

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@maxdancona,

Hes wrong on a whole shitpot of levels. All my arguments were totally conceptual. LL has no knowledge of how the system of plate tectonics works and keeps insisting on an energy budget that includes surficial insolation within which he preaches some really bizarre stratigraphic sections. Everything Ive said can be shown experimentally and mathematically but Im afraid wed be chasing our tails getting him to realize how the total system kinetics even works.

I rested my case when I got tired of his"kinetic v potential energy" prattle when he even hqd those reversed.
o may areas of error , so little understanding of a really basic system

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

It is quite common for an object that is being pushed up a hill to have a greater kinetic energy at the top then it does in the bottom. If this were a discussion in my high school class, I would have my students calculate what force would be required for this to happen. Any reasonably good high school Physics student would be able to calculate this without much problem.

Example?

Quote:

You should the math, but in this case you don't even need to. A car stopped on the bottom of a hill has zero kinetic energy. If the driver steps on the gas, most cars will have no problem speeding over the top of the hill with a fairly high kinetic energy at the top.

The fuel being burned is chemical potential energy being converted into kinetic energy, which is pushing the car up the hill, adding to its gravitational potential energy. When the car starts going down the hill, the gravitational potential it built up gets released/converted into kinetic energy.

You can't push a car or anything else to a higher elevation without increasing its potential energy, and you can't create energy from nothing, so the energy to move it uphill has to be lost from some other source, in this case the car's fuel tank.

Quote:

2) LivingLava is also philosophically wrong. He has be arguing for what he calls "critical thinking" and questioning. But look at what happened.

He made a statement that is wrong. It is fairly simple to show that it is wrong. He was questioned about it. Instead of questioning is own preconception and seeing his own mistake he doubled down. He is taking what seems right to him at first... and sticks with it unwaveringly.

That's stupid logic. It is all based on the premise I am wrong. You fail to question your own preconceptions and double down when you believe you're right and someone else is wrong.

Quote:

I know far more Physics than LivingLava. I learned it by doing my homework (literally). But, unlike him, I have been willing to admit when I am wrong. I wish I could find the thread, but Engineer once corrected me on a stupid mistake I had made in a discussion about basic mechanics... I looked at what he said. I did the calculation (my mistake is that I answered too quickly at something I thought I knew without doing the math). And I admitted I was wrong.

You try to prove you're right by insisting that you're better than others/me. Truth just doesn't work that way. Yes, it's good to admit when you're wrong, but even if you're a bad person who never admits when they're wrong, that doesn't make you less right when you say something true.

Quote:

There is no shame in making a mistake. But there are right answers in Physics, and those right answers are determined by the math (and by experiments, but experiments in Physics are math).

You can't argue with math. And... you can't argue Physics without math.

The law of conservation of energy/matter is bulletproof and the math is simple.

If an object moves to a higher elevation, it gains potential energy. For it to gain potential energy, energy has to be converted from some other form.

Conservation means zero-sum math.

That doesn't mean you can't play mind tricks with math, though. Take your example above about a car driving over a hill. You basically just skirted over the change in potential energy as the car goes up and down in elevation by focusing on the car's kinetic energy going over the hill.

I assume you would do some slick math like saying the car's kinetic energy is the same at the bottom and top of the hill because it's speed and mass are the same, but you would be ignoring the energy budget going on within the motor and fuel tank. So by conveniently leaving out certain aspects, you can pretend like your numbers add up; and they might, but only because you modeled reality wrong.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Hes wrong on a whole shitpot of levels. All my arguments were totally conceptual. LL has no knowledge of how the system of plate tectonics works and keeps insisting on an energy budget that includes surficial insolation within which he preaches some really bizarre stratigraphic sections. Everything Ive said can be shown experimentally and mathematically but Im afraid wed be chasing our tails getting him to realize how the total system kinetics even works.

You don't even understand what I said when you criticize it. I posted elsewhere about how the insolation example on Wikipedia was misguided. Of course the sunlight shining on the ground doesn't directly warm the Earth's interior deeper than a few inches. You have to look at the overall energy budget of what's happening with the solar energy that reaches Earth. Then you have to consider it over millennia and millennia of time it takes for new material at the spreading ridge to reach the subduction zone.

Quote:

I rested my case when I got tired of his"kinetic v potential energy" prattle when he even hqd those reversed.
o may areas of error , so little understanding of a really basic system

I don't have kinetic and potential energy reversed. You are just so desperate to put me down that you totally shirk straightforward discussion that would make sense to anyone who understands these science topics.

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@farmerman,

"catastrophic Plate Tectonics" has been developed as a Creationist "theory" in which the mechanism for this "catastrophic" Continental Drift rate, during the Noachian Flood exceeded 7 miles per hour (surfs up in Sumeria). The mechanism as presented in ARJ (creation Journal by Australian "Dr" Andrew Snelling) is one in which the mantle magmas were "Joined" by "hot layers" of rocks in the earth's crust causing the crust to catastrophically break (and presumably move at the speed of a Euclid Quarry hauler or even a canal boat.
This bears close scrutiny to what LL has been trying to use to sound intelligent( without breaking Andy Snellings Creationist Bullshit)

There is so much Creationist published crap (most of which comes out of OZ) and its one of the reason that I feel that LL merely a shill.

Part of the Creationist pattern of argument is to dwell on one generally impossible mechanism or data point and IGNORING or DENYING all the facts and evidence that actual science has amassed.

The thing that bugs m about Snellings minions is that , as part of their sals pitch, they try to deride science for not accepting Plate Tectonics when Wegener gave his papers on the subject .
It took over 30 yers to gather up information that proposed a model mechanism for how the plates move(and another 15 yers to actually collect field data that w conclusive. MEANWHILE, Creationists were spouting about a 6000 yer old planet with all natural forces being controlled by some supernatural being. They published scads of books all about "Flood Geology" and other hokum.
Then, once science finally developed a working model for a New Global Tectonics, the Creation klavern suddenly jumped aboard and, by making several major physical changes in order to conform with the sacrosanct "Flood", and started to announce that they had thought of it first.
Thats how their minds work. Fraud, Lying, mounting false theories and mechanisms and denying actual geology, geophysics and Radiometric dating because they needed that earth to have a fixed "birthdate" that corresponded to Biblical Revelation, and besides, its all for God's work so its all good eh?.

Fortunately, these clowns, in the US are dwindling in number,(that's the good news). The bad news is that theyve spread out to the rest of the Fundamentalist Christian world in Asia, Africa, Europe,and Australia (especially), and the Muslim world all over.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Ill bet that it took no advanced mathematical analyses to come up with that mind exercise. Ive always believed that the math grows out of the discovery or initial experiments.

Agree.

I’ve never looked up the viscosity of 'Earth' either, but I’d bet that factor would rule out the kinetic collision theory too. There had to be something pushing pretty hard.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

This bears close scrutiny to what LL has been trying to use to sound intelligent( without breaking Andy Snellings Creationist Bullshit)

There is so much Creationist published crap (most of which comes out of OZ) and its one of the reason that I feel that LL merely a shill.

I think you are a factionalist because you can't really deal with what someone says at the individual level. All you can do is try to define them in terms of some faction you've already passed judgment on.

Quote:

Part of the Creationist pattern of argument is to dwell on one generally impossible mechanism or data point and IGNORING or DENYING all the facts and evidence that actual science has amassed.

Sort of like you ignore discussing specific things I've posted in favor of lumping me together with your enemy factions and/or ridiculing me at a general level?

Quote:

The thing that bugs m about Snellings minions is that , as part of their sals pitch, they try to deride science for not accepting Plate Tectonics when Wegener gave his papers on the subject .
It took over 30 yers to gather up information that proposed a model mechanism for how the plates move(and another 15 yers to actually collect field data that w conclusive. MEANWHILE, Creationists were spouting about a 6000 yer old planet with all natural forces being controlled by some supernatural being. They published scads of books all about "Flood Geology" and other hokum.
Then, once science finally developed a working model for a New Global Tectonics, the Creation klavern suddenly jumped aboard and, by making several major physical changes in order to conform with the sacrosanct "Flood", and started to announce that they had thought of it first.
Thats how their minds work. Fraud, Lying, mounting false theories and mechanisms and denying actual geology, geophysics and Radiometric dating because they needed that earth to have a fixed "birthdate" that corresponded to Biblical Revelation, and besides, its all for God's work so its all good eh?.

Look at you being stupid enough to fall into the trap of arguing against something you don't even consider possibly valid. Why don't you stick with teaching and explaining what YOU believe is true and why instead of ridiculing what others say? Answer: probably because you have nothing to say about what you believe except to cite and defer to your academic heroes, whose work you would not explain in your own words out of fear of getting something wrong.

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Fortunately, these clowns, in the US are dwindling in number,(that's the good news). The bad news is that theyve spread out to the rest of the Fundamentalist Christian world in Asia, Africa, Europe,and Australia (especially), and the Muslim world all over.

Let people have their alternative theories. If it gets them doing research and grounding their claims in facts, that gives you or anyone else a basis for questioning their explanation of the facts and explaining the right one.

If you want to clarify why theories are right or wrong, focus on the content of the theories and not on negativity toward the theorist. It makes you look like the only reason you accept one theory and reject another is because of blind factionalism and not because of reasoned critical thinking.

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@livinglava,

That is true but only because what youve been spouting is actually quite similar to Snelling's BS.
Are you trying to take credit for the Creationist Sunrise again?

Quote:

Look at you being stupid enough to fall into the trap of arguing against something you don't even consider possibly valid.

Actually Ive been busy trying to explain that your beliefs are,in fact, twaddle, and Ive been also trying to explain to others reading why..
Youre still the moron or just a religion peddling huckster.
I cant decided which one.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

That is true but only because what youve been spouting is actually quite similar to Snelling's BS.
Are you trying to take credit for the Creationist Sunrise again?

That's just how uncritical you think; i.e. you just classify things into groups and favor them or disfavor them based on categorical association.

Quote:

Actually Ive been busy trying to explain that your beliefs are,in fact, twaddle, and Ive been also trying to explain to others reading why..
Youre still the moron or just a religion peddling huckster.
I cant decided which one.
[/quote]
What I've been trying to explain to you is that you insulting me or anyone else doesn't teach any science.

If you are in favor of science, you should be discussion why something is scientifically unsupportable by explaining things in a way others can understand.

If all you do is ridicule and insult things you classify as non-science or pseudoscience, it just makes you look like you are incapable of understanding/explaining why/how something can be scientific or not; i.e. it just looks like you base your categorization on how something 'looks' or 'smells,' rather than on actual logical analysis.

You may actually understand things on some logical/analytical level, but the way you write just sounds like you get a subjective feeling that something isn't scientific and start attacking it for that reason.

In short, your criticism comes across as uncritical, emotionally-driven territorialism

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

you just classify things into groups and favor them or disfavor them based on categorical association

Actually its much simpler. I categorize them into these categories/

1.Reasonable and

2Bullshit.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:
you just classify things into groups and favor them or disfavor them based on categorical association
Actually its much simpler. I categorize them into these categories/

1.Reasonable and

2Bullshit.

To use your words:

"I rest my case"

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@maxdancona,

Daredevil 'Mad' Mike Hughes Killed In Crash Of Homemade Rocket

Quote:

The daredevil "Mad" Mike Hughes was killed in a rocket launch gone wrong Saturday in Barstow, Calif., two witnesses to the accident confirmed. He was 64.

It was the third launch for Hughes in one of his homemade rockets and part of his eventual plan to be able to determine for himself, up in the sky, if Earth was as flat as he proclaimed to believe.

Now? How many Flat-Earthers will call conspiracy and claim that Mike Hughes was murdered by pro-Spherical-Earthers(?)?

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Many scientists are great in their own expertise. Get them onto other topics and their thoughts are the same as the rest of us. They just think because real science stays mostly on track with reality their other opinions just naturally follow. Here's where diversity dwells. Of course, the true looneys, such as flat earthers and deniers of the moon landing are still as looney tunes as most of us think they are.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Flat Earthers can be more than a bit loony, they can be dangerous fanatics. From what I've heard their view is that Earth is a disc with the North Pole in the centre and the South Pole as the circumference.

https://www.livescience.com/24310-flat-earth-belief.html

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@tsarstepan,

A good nominee for the Darwin award in 2020.

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Creationists, Flat-Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers.... People who reject science.

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